The Mind of the Strategist

"In business as on the battlefield, the object of strategy is to bring about the condition most favorable to one's own side."

"By failing to grasp the critical issues, too many senior managers today impose great anxiety on themselves and their subordinates, whose efforts end in failure and frustration."

"A good business strategy is one by which a company can gain significant ground on its competitors at an acceptable cost to itself."

"There are four ways of strengthening a company's position relative to that of its competitors."

"Merely allocating resources in the same way as your competitors will yield no competitive edge."

"To formulate a corporate strategy that will be difficult for a competitor to imitate, the company either develops a completely new product or makes use of a position of relative superiority."

"The strategist's method is very simply to challenge the prevailing assumptions with a single question: Why?"

"Any realistic plan for strategic improvement has to be worked out within the constraints of the given finite resources."

"The more severe the pressure and the more urgently a broader view is needed, the more dangerously their mental vision seems to narrow down."

"The true strategic thinker can respond flexibly to the inevitable changes in the situation that confronts the company. And it is that flexibility which, in turn, increases the chances of success."

"A strategic thinker never allows himself to lose sight of the key factors in the business or operation for which he is responsible."

"In the construction of any business strategy, three main players must be taken into account: the corporation itself, the customer, and the competition."

"Business unit definition always leaves room for dispute."

"In a free, competitive economic world, there will be no stability in a corporation's performance if it allows its attention to be diverted from the basic business mission of serving its customers."

"The corporation's functional strategies should be clearly distinguished from operational improvements."

"Competitor-based strategies can be constructed by looking at possible sources of differentiation in functions ranging from purchasing, design, and engineering to sales and servicing."

"A diversified company differs fundamentally from a conglomerate."

"Too many diversified companies strangle individual businesses with red tape in the form of financial and bureaucratic guidelines."

"Possibly the most alarming effect of low growth is the way it drastically limits the margin of error in managers' decisions and narrows the leeway within which mistakes in judgment can be accommodated."

"Since we cannot predict the future, we must start from the present; and we can do so by classifying a company's businesses into four categories."

"A number of important changes now taking place in the structure of world industry will influence the prospects for success of most business strategies in the years just ahead."

"The concept of the corporation is fundamentally different in Japan."

"The forces at work in the business environment must be extrapolated into the future on the basis of cause and effect."

"We need to identify and stimulate those habits or conditions which nurture creativity and at the same time to crystallize the constraints or boundaries defining our probability of success."